Formation of TiOF compounds in fluorine-implanted TiO

Yamaki, Tetsuya; Sumita, Taishi; Yamamoto, Shunya

We showed the effects of 200 keV F implantation in TiO rutile single crystals followed by the thermal annealing. The isochronal annealing at 573 and 873 K for 5 h for each step led to the formation of an F-doped TiO phase, along with the recovery of the radiation damage and the simultaneous impurity diffusion. This phase was identified to be a TiOF compound with x = 0.0039 in the outmost region as determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (probably the first few atomic layers). The fluorination of TiO leads to interesting characteristics and opens avenues towards photoelectronic films with various applications. In addition, our method enabled dopants to be introduced in a controlled manner at specific locations to realize impurity concentration gradients in TiO.